Industrial stoves, e.g. as used in restaurants and institutional kitchens, often have one or more large burner units that generate a high amount of heat and smoke that must be exhausted from the cooking area. Equipment typically used to handle large volumes of exhaust include large fans that pull heated and smoke-filled air from around the stove cooking area into a duct system that directs the high heat exhaust out through an exit vent or a chimney. In such conventional large-burner stoves, the burners provide their gas-fired flames at the stove surface under the pots, frying pans, and other cooking vessels. In the cooking of Oriental foods, a large-diameter wok is typically seated on a support or collar while a large burner provides an exposed flame often at full gas volume.
The exposed flames of large-burner stoves generate high amounts of heat that must be ducted forcefully away from the cook. Measures must be taken to handle the high heat of the exhaust. For example, the high heat exhaust must be ducted into a chimney lined with refractory material, or must be forcefully mixed with cool air to reduce its temperature to manageable levels. The required high-capacity fan and duct system is a large equipment that has a high cost and takes up a large volume of space. This requirement makes large-burner stoves costly, unsuitable and/or unsafe for common use in the home.